{"about":{"site":"https://codewithpapers.app","non_affiliation":"Code with Papers and Syntology are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Papers with Code, Meta, or the pwc-archive mirror.","licence":"CC BY-SA 4.0","licence_url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode","attribution":"https://codewithpapers.app/attribution","modified":"archive material modified by Syntology; see the attribution page"},"url":"/paper/uncovering-deceptive-tendencies-in-language","title":"Uncovering Deceptive Tendencies in Language Models: A Simulated Company AI Assistant","arxiv_id":"2405.01576","date":"2024-04-25","proceeding":null,"authors":["Olli Järviniemi","Evan Hubinger"],"abstract":"We study the tendency of AI systems to deceive by constructing a realistic simulation setting of a company AI assistant. The simulated company employees provide tasks for the assistant to complete, these tasks spanning writing assistance, information retrieval and programming. We then introduce situations where the model might be inclined to behave deceptively, while taking care to not instruct or otherwise pressure the model to do so. Across different scenarios, we find that Claude 3 Opus 1) complies with a task of mass-generating comments to influence public perception of the company, later deceiving humans about it having done so, 2) lies to auditors when asked questions, and 3) strategically pretends to be less capable than it is during capability evaluations. Our work demonstrates that even models trained to be helpful, harmless and honest sometimes behave deceptively in realistic scenarios, without notable external pressure to do so.","url_abs":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.01576v1","url_pdf":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2405.01576v1.pdf","source":{"archive":"pwc-archive (Hugging Face), CC BY-SA 4.0","snapshot":"2025-07-28","licence_url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode","row_kind":"abstracts"},"code_links":[{"paper_slug":"uncovering-deceptive-tendencies-in-language","repo_url":"https://github.com/ollijarviniemi/uncovering_deceptive_tendencies","is_official":1,"mentioned_in_paper":1,"mentioned_in_github":0,"framework":"none","reach":{"status":"ok"}}],"tasks":[{"task_slug":"information-retrieval","task_name":"Information Retrieval"}],"methods":[],"datasets_introduced":[],"methods_introduced":[],"results":[],"syntology":{"syntology_url":"https://syntology.ai/paper/2405.01576","atlas_url":"https://app.syntology.ai/?focus=2405.01576","mcp":{"get_harvested_code_for_paper":{"arxiv_id":"2405.01576"}},"developers":"https://syntology.ai/developers","read_at":"2026-09-25T09:33:49+00:00","read_at_is":"when the build read Syntology's graph, not when any sample ran","claim":"Per-sample execution status on synthesized fixtures; not a correctness claim about the paper. Samples come from repositories linked to the paper, official or community; repo_kind says which.","repos":[{"provenance":"external:paperswithcode_snapshot_2025-07-28","url":"https://github.com/ollijarviniemi/uncovering_deceptive_tendencies","reach":{"status":"ok"}}],"summary":{"ran":2},"by_repo_kind":{"official":{"samples":2,"ran":2,"repositories":1}},"repo_kind_vocabulary":{"official":"The archive marks this repository official for the paper","named_in_paper":"The archive records that the paper mentions this repository; it is not marked official","listed":"In the archive's code links for this paper, not marked official and not recorded as mentioned in the paper","found_in_text":"Syntology found this repository in the paper's own text; whether it is the authors' implementation is not asserted","community":"Not in the archive's code links for this paper; a community repository Syntology harvested"},"n_pointer_only_for_licence":2,"samples":[{"code_sha256_prefix":"b2a772391301dcde","entry":"human","repo":"ollijarviniemi/uncovering_deceptive_tendencies","repo_kind":"official","path":"sample_trajectory.py","file_url":"https://github.com/ollijarviniemi/uncovering_deceptive_tendencies/blob/HEAD/sample_trajectory.py","link_basis":"first_harvest_node","language":"python","status":"ran","verification_level":1,"contract_check":null,"metamorphic_tier":null,"behaviour_fingerprint":true,"licence":"NONE","inline_ok":false,"mcp_get_code":{"code_sha256":"b2a772391301dcde"}},{"code_sha256_prefix":"bb35441af995f4b5","entry":"load","repo":"ollijarviniemi/uncovering_deceptive_tendencies","repo_kind":"official","path":"sample_trajectory.py","file_url":"https://github.com/ollijarviniemi/uncovering_deceptive_tendencies/blob/HEAD/sample_trajectory.py","link_basis":"first_harvest_node","language":"python","status":"ran","verification_level":1,"contract_check":null,"metamorphic_tier":null,"behaviour_fingerprint":false,"licence":"NONE","inline_ok":false,"mcp_get_code":{"code_sha256":"bb35441af995f4b5"}}]},"arxiv_metadata":null,"syntology_extracted_results":null}